


I'll Be Your Light, Your Match, Your Burning Sun

by Only_1_Truth



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 00-agents can be cuddly, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, But not before things get wild and violent, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddles, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missions gone bad, Platonic - but pre-slash if you squint, Pre-Relationship, Puppy-piles, Q is not being paid enough for this, Q wants those cuddles, Seriously tooth-rotting fluff, migraines, some slight pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8915023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: In an MI6 where Dragons, Basalisks, Cerberii and all sorts of other creatures exist, Q is a lowly Level Three Fury who's innate ability to drain away the rage in others is mediocre at best.  Still, he watches wistfully when the official Fury of MI6 interacts with all of the 00-agents.  Sure, being the Quartermaster is probably less dangerous than dealing with the Dragons of MI6... but Q wonders if the risk would be worth the reward?  He gets his chance to find out when a mission with 007 goes bad, and Q is stick with thirteen-stone of enraged Dragon on his hands.  Q's got a choice: step up or step out.  He can either rise to the occasion and play Fury... or play the odds of Bond going absolutely ballistic on the world at large.  Either way, the fallout will be fantastic...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from One Republic's "Love Runs Out"  
> Edited by the ever-lovely [Springbok](http://archiveofourown.org/users/springbok7/pseuds/springbok7)! The fic is already completed, but just needs final touches - so it will be posted a chapter a week, probably!

When Q was called into M’s office, he had just handed off Agent 003 to one of his minions.  It had been a living nightmare to get the man through Budapest under a hail of bullets, but Q was the best at what he did, and 003 had brought it upon himself, so what little damage the agent did take didn’t make Q feel all that bad.  Honestly, just because Gregory Hind was a Dragon, the man thought he was bullet-proof…

As a rule, all 00-agents in MI6 were Dragons.  Out of the diverse and curious array of non-humans in Britain and beyond, they were the best equipped to handle the stress and dangers of international espionage, what with their physical power and the way their thoughts naturally slipped into a predatory mindset that was arguably more dangerous than the guns they carried.  Other non-human breeds were dangerous - Cerberii, Basilisks, even Harpies could be quite a threat - but nothing did cunning and destruction like Dragons did.  Even though none of those supernatural creatures actually existed in physical shape and form, Q had to admit that there was something to the stories of fire-breathing, unstoppable monsters found in children’s books.

The monsters that Q handled just happened to heal very quickly and have a certain tendency towards pyromania.  They weren't exactly giant flying reptiles, but 00-agents were still masterfully good at chaos nonetheless.

Q himself was a Fury.  Not a very strong one, but he still registered when tested - on the official scale of one to ten, he was on the weak side with a three.  M had been surprised that someone of his kind wanted the job of MI6 Quartermaster, because a Fury’s skill set wasn’t usually equated with cold, detached tech and computers, regardless of how strong the person was.  Q’s credentials had more than gotten his point across, though, and now he was fixing things Dragons broke, hacking foreign systems, and generally building and coding more than he’d ever thought he would in his life. It was both glorious and exhausting.  

Fatigued both from directing 003 and from the emotional eddies he’d handled in Q-branch, Q made his way to M’s office as quickly as possible.  Her message had indicated that it was urgent, but he hadn’t thought to ask what it was about - that’s how distracted 003 had made him.  Now that Q lifted his head and shook off the mayhem of the mission he’d handled, MI6 did seem a bit riled around him…  Growing alert once more, the Quartermaster quickened his pace to a brisk walk, opening up the inner eye at his core and feeling threads of anger (of fury) drifting like threads of molten heat through the air.  Heart jerking in his chest, the dark-haired young man got close enough to see Moneypenny, who looked almost afraid.  Before Q could ask what in the world could unsettle a woman like her, she was nodding him to M’s office.  

Moneypenny was a Basilisk.  They couldn’t turn people to stone with a look like the myths said, but they were very, very hard to unsettle, generally staying cool as cucumbers even in the most hellish situations.  If Eve was rattled, this was bad, and Q’s adrenalin began to fizzle through his system in earnest.  “M, you wanted to see me immediately?” he said as soon as he got inside, the door swinging shut behind him.

M was also a Basilisk, one who knew her powers well enough to freeze even Bond in his tracks - metaphorically, not physically, although Q could also personally attest to the fact that M could drop the temperature in the room by at least ten degrees if she wanted to.  Now her grey eyes were as sharp as glass, and everything in her emitted rigidly controlled tension that Q didn’t have to use his abilities to notice.  “I’ve already sent a message letting R know that she is in charge of Q-branch for the time being.  I’m afraid that I must ask you to use your skills elsewhere.  Believe me when I say I wouldn’t be asking this of you if it weren’t completely necessary.”

“What is it you need?  If something is broken-”  With 00-agents, something was always broken.

But M cut him off.  “I don’t need you as a Quartermaster - I need you as a Fury.  I’ve got three 00-agents so deep in killing rages that I can’t even bring them back to British soil.  I need you to bring them down.”

“What?” Q stuttered, totally stunned.  He wet his lips and got his voice back under control, speaking more firmly, “M, I know that you’ve read my record - I’m a Level 3 Fury with a tendency for bottling things up.  Lorelei Black would be much-”

“Lorelei is dead.”  And with that, Q knew where all of the feelings of anger were coming from.  Lorelei was just a waif of a woman, but she meant something to MI6.  If he opened his inner eye just a little, he could trace the threads of fury through the air like ribbons of wrathfully red light - no doubt each one leading to anyone who knew about the death of Ms. Black.  The strongest thread led incandescently to M, although she hid it behind her cold, Basilisk mask.  “Am I correct in understanding that you and Mr. Bond have become rather well acquainted?” she asked unexpectedly.

Q’s cheeks flushed.  “Well... er... yes, to a degree,” he admitted cagily, unable to resist the urge to look away.

M wasn’t interested in interpersonal relationships, however.  Her question was as to-the-point and honed as a surgeon’s scalpel, “And you brought him down from a killing rage once before?”

Spine tensing like a ramrod at the memory alone, Q clenched his hands unconsciously where he still stood between M and the door.  His hazel eyes snapped back to her, and he blurted artlessly in surprise, “I was unaware that that had been documented.”

“Just because Bond hates giving reports doesn’t mean he doesn’t write them.  He was incredibly circumspect and vague, but I read between the lines, so I know that you were there and managed to help him.  Considering he didn’t kill you, I’d say you made a very good impression.”  

Q still felt incredibly lost, and the death of Lorelei Black - a fellow Fury he had only barely known - was starting to sink in.  He was sure that if he just thought hard enough, all of the pieces would fit together, but he suspected he wouldn’t like the picture M was painting with them.  “So you…?”

“I need you to go with Moneypenny and get my agents back.  There may be other Furies I could send, but none of them even remotely know 002, 6, or 7.  You’ve at least gone out drinking with enough of your coworkers to have met them, and you’ve acted as a Fury for 007 before,” M said like a cleaver dropping, cutting off the conversation.  “Your plane leaves within the hour.  We’ve already packed for you.  Go.”

~^~

_Previous_

~^~

Despite the nature of espionage, many of those who worked at MI6 trusted each other enough to go out drinking just like coworkers from anywhere else - it was good for interpersonal relations.  If everyone got along, they’d be less likely to sabotage each other, supposedly.  Soon after settling into his job as the new Quartermaster, Q was invited along for company as well, and came to know that Harry’s Pub had the best beer, the Black Dog Bar was exotic but played music he liked, and Moneypenny was equally as friendly sober as she was drunk.  As it turned out, so were certain 00-agents.

Bond was a bit of a conundrum, a problem that was probably mostly in Q’s head because the boffin’s sexual preferences were broad enough that he wasn’t put off much by gender.  He immediately found the agent attractive, and kicked himself for realizing it.  He mollified himself with the fact that most of the agents in the 00-division were more handsome than average and unbelievably fit, so he could hardly be blamed for staring at _any_ of them.  

He blamed this purely physical attraction for the little itch of jealousy that started up when he met Lorelei Black, a young woman who always appeared when there were more than three MI6 Dragons in the same place.  

“They sure put up with her,” Q murmured to Moneypenny, leaning an elbow on the bar with his drink forgotten in his other hand.  Eve was sitting next to him, but the four agents they’d brought with them - all double-ohs, although they looked shockingly normal in their street clothes now - were in the lounge seating nearby, sprawled lazily and looking comfortable while Lorelei flitted amongst them.  She drifted from one man to another, sitting close and often slipping under muscular arms, then trading that in for another perch, all the while looking as happy as a tuft of dandelion fluff dancing on a breeze.  Q tried to understand why he felt particularly annoyed when she got up from 008's side and scooted the other way, so that she could be welcomed into 007’s arms.  The man just smiled his usual, charming smile and went back to telling some bawdy joke to 006 across the way.  

It would be easier to be irked by Lorelei’s presence if she weren’t also MI6, and if she weren’t actually quite a nice girl.  She wasn’t even insanely good looking, but in fact built a bit on the boyish side.  All in all, even as she moved from man to man like some sort of party favor, it was impossible to think poorly of her, because she just looked so _happy_ doing it.  For some reason or another, the agents also weren’t coming on to her too strongly, although more than a few appreciative caresses had paid homage to the girl’s slight but pretty curves.  

Eve followed where Q’s eyes were aimed, and seemed to take note of Q’s discontent even though he didn’t think he was frowning too heavily.  “She’s a Fury - like you,” Eve supplied, one eyebrow lifting until she realized that the Quartermaster didn’t know what she was getting at - he’d only been in MI6 for a few weeks.  The knowledge about what Lorelei was had surprised him, but he didn’t understand what that had to do with the unprofessional situation.  Smiling a knowing little smile and glancing once more between Q and the agent he was particularly looking at (James, one arm now curled around Lorelei’s petite waist), Eve went on, “Q, 00-agents always need a stabilizer like Lorelei - she’s the only reason we can keep so many Dragons in MI6.”  As Q’s surprised, questioning eyes jerked back to her, Moneypenny explained more fully, gesturing with her martini glass, “Lorelei is a Level 9 Fury - one of the most powerful ones in England.  She constantly syphons off some of that killing intent double-ohs are encouraged to have.  On the job, it can be useful, but ninety percent of the time, Dragons work best if they have a Fury around that they’ve been made accustomed to.  What she’s doing is actually her job.”

With new understanding, Q looked back at his coworkers, seeing as Lorelei wriggled and leaned back towards Alec.  Bond let her go without diverting his attention from his talk with 008, and the young woman moved to a different place - under 006’s arm again.  The man seemed to relax minutely, a tension Q hadn’t even noticed leaving his broad shoulders.  He smiled more easily, and offered Lorelei some of his beer.  She wrinkled her nose and declined - “On duty,” Q thought he read her lips saying.  Alec said something back with a wolfish grin, but the most misbehaving he did was to run a hand from her knee to mid-thigh.  His smile had less wolf in it and more... human.   

“I see,” Q said, flushing and feeling as if he should apologize to Lorelei for thinking so poorly of her.  It seemed that Furies more powerful than himself could act quite a lot like minxes when really, they were doing very dangerous work with very dangerous people.  He hadn’t been at MI6 long yet, but he’d already gotten a good idea just how lethal a 00-agent’s temper was - and how necessary it was for them to keep that temper in check if they were to succeed at their jobs.

“What level Fury are you?” Eve asked unexpectedly, feigning nonchalance and keeping her eyes purposefully diverted to the dance floor not far off.  

Seeing no point in dissembling, Q took another sip of his drink before answering, “Just a three.  I can keep Q-branch calm, though, which boosts efficiency.  I know that I got my job on other merits, though.”

“Even powerful Furies can’t all work with 00-agents,” Eve replied, assuming that that was where Q’s mind was going... which was true, although he’d never admit it.  He was curious.  “All of the 00-agents had to accept Lorelei and took weeks to get used to her before she could safely come up to them at their worst, and pull away the excess frustration and temper.  Right after a mission is when Furies are needed most, but if just any Fury stepped in off the streets, they’d probably end up with a snapped neck before they got close enough to help.”

Q shivered, wondering when their talk had gotten so morbid.  He realized that he was still watching James and appreciating the slide and flex of his muscles under his shirt, and quickly swiveled his stool back around to face the bar.  “Duly noted.  I’ll be sure to give Lorelei the respect she’s due when I next see her,” Q said wholeheartedly.  Lorelei was clearly a whole lot braver than she looked.  

And he had to admit, his libido was a bit jealous of how she was so easily accepted - like a stray cat owned by the whole neighborhood - by the handsome-faced fellows casually sipping drinks and whiling away the evening.  

~^~

_Present_

~^~

Q hated planes.  He always had.  As with most phobias, it had little to no basis in logic, which only made him more frustrated - it meant his greatest weapon, his brain, was ineffectual at getting him out of it.  He didn’t even know why he was afraid of planes.  He simply had been since as far back as he could remember.  

That he was on a private jet helped only minutely.  At least the ride was quiet and smooth.

“Doing okay, Q?” asked Eve, sitting across from him and looking concerned.  

“Oh, just peachy,” he snarked back while squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his hands on the seat’s armrests, “Not only do I get to face a phobia today, but I’ve been told that I get to calm down three men with a licence to kill.  Why doesn’t MI6 just leave them to cool down on their own?”  He realized that he sounded nasty, but really, his temper wasn’t all that good right now.  M also hadn’t had time to explain very much more before shuffling him off to the airport with Eve.  “Apparently the local authorities managed to confine them, and I know that it’s been done before.  Lorelei can’t be everywhere.”

“Yes, Q, but this time it’s different.”  Eve’s voice was stressed and subdued, and the tiny sliver of these rare emotions had Q focusing past his fear of flying, eyes opening to wary slits.  Eve was looking down at her hands folded in her lap.  “This was a delicate mission, so Lorelei was sent with them - and she was connected to all three of them, evening them out, when she was shot.”  Lifting her head and firming her jaw, Eve finished steadily while Q stared, “I know that you Furies can usually only take anger from people, but this is the exception to the rule.  If a Fury is killed while using their power like that, there’s an emotional backlash.  It’s happened only once before in MI6 history, as far as I know.”

“What happened that time?” Q had to know.  He’d almost - almost - managed to forget that he was on a plane.

Eve’s eyes were as cold as any Basilisk’s.  “It took nearly a dozen people to put the affected agent down before he killed anyone.  Without a Fury nearby that the agents know, there’s no way to turn this kind of rage off.”

~^~

_Previous_

~^~

Q’s first adventure out in the field was with a minor agent - they’d gotten their hands on some chancy tech that even the London bomb squad didn’t want to get involved with, and the Quartermaster of MI6 had been the next best person to call.  It had been quite an enjoyable stretching of his legs, if not exhilarating.  Q’s second occasion to work outside the walls of Q-branch had been with 006.  It had been decidedly more… exciting.  By now, the new Quartermaster was aware that 006 and 7 had nearly tied records for most damages done that MI6 had had to pay for, but seeing the agent’s recklessness in person had been disturbingly illuminating.  The mission had called for on-site technical assistance, and while Q hadn’t been around for the beginning of the mission, after he was laboriously flown out, he got to see its explosive end.  All the good guys walked away with minor injuries only, and the Quartermaster had been too flabbergasted to do anything but stare in the face of 006’s ‘aren’t you proud of me?’ grin.  The man was a maniac, even by Dragon standards.  

Q’s third active mission was after being in MI6 for months and learning the different nuances and strengths of every agent he was responsible for.  By this point, he knew that James Bond was the only one who didn’t say ‘How high?’ when the Quartermaster said ‘Jump out of that window if you want to live.’  Therefore, when it became known that 007’s mission required the retrieval of heavily encrypted data, Q rather nervously began packing his bags.  It wasn’t that Bond was a belligerent agent, it was merely that his loyalty to MI6 and blind obedience were clearly different things to him, and sometimes he thought he knew better.

Admittedly, the agent sometimes really _did_.  That was why Q rarely interfered with his missions besides giving intel and directions (although he’d interfere the hell out of security systems and traffic lights if it brought his agents home safe).  The fact that Q was still rather unprofessionally hung up on him didn’t help either, but he blamed that on the fact that Bond was all charm and practically everyone who saw him had a bit of a crush on him.  

This mission had been one of those occasions when neither Q nor Bond had known best, and one ambush, three tranquilizers (only one of which worked - on Q), and a lot of shooting later, Q and Bond were standing on a hijacked subway train with a lot of dead bodies around them.  

Panting and still more than a bit unsteady from the dart he’d taken sometime back, Q immediately staggered to the door to the next train car.  Unfortunately, the handle wouldn’t move, but he wasn’t particularly surprised.  There had been so many bullets flying around that it was a miracle the ricochets hadn’t done more damage.  He heard heavy breathing and a low, mounting growl behind him that immediately refocused his attention.  Growls like that didn’t come from normal humans - just MI6 Dragons.

“Q…”  Bond’s voice sounded thick, laborious, and it didn’t sound as though the difficulty stemmed from the multiple wounds bloodying his suit and skin.  When the tranquilizers hadn’t done much against 007’s Dragon metabolism, their foes had handcuffed him to one of the vertical poles and presumably tried to incapacitate him after that.  Q didn’t know the specifics; he’d been asleep for the worst of it.  All he knew was that 007 was a lot more bloodied up after the Quartermaster awoke, but had broken one hand free.  The other remained firmly affixed to the pole.  Bond had done an obscene amount of damage from where he was, but now his pupils were blown, and Q imagined something hot and everywhere licking against his skin.  

The agent cleared his throat as if the words were all piled up in it.  “You might… want to leave.”  

On a hunch, the Quartermaster did what Furies were known for, and hesitantly opened what he thought of as his ‘inner eye’ until he could just peek at his emotional surroundings.  Immediately, he sucked in a gasp past his teeth and backed up an involuntary step, nearly tripping over a body.  Trapped fury was bleeding off 007 like heat from a kiln.  “Shit,” Q whispered, checking the door again.  He wanted to try the one on the other side, but that would put him within 007’s reach as he passed him, and the fury of battle was still like one massive, raw nerve all over him.  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” the smaller man managed to reply in a voice that passed for calm, albeit a squeaky, breathless sort of calm.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q's got to think fast and act faster if he wants to get out of this alive - not to mention if he wants to prevent a certain Dragon from going homicidal at the world at large.
> 
> Or was that "Dragons" plural...? (Guess who gets into even _more_ trouble?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter!! \\(^u^)/ I had so much fun writing this part. So I hope that everyone enjoys the early Christmas present!

Without warning, 007 threw all of his weight against the remaining cuff.  It was industrial strength - their opponents had known they’d be up against a Dragon’s prodigious power - but Q flinched as he heard the metal whine in protest.  Regaining control of himself just a little, the blond-haired agent stopped his attempts to get free, although the instinct was clearly still screaming in his ears, making his chest heave and his blue eyes dart.  “It’s…”  Bond tried to explain, the effort of holding himself still nearly impossible.  Powerful muscles were flexing and shifting beneath his clothing, and he practically quivered with the urge to fight against the cuff again.  He flexed his trapped hand against the tight band of metal.  Baring his teeth in a grimace that was blood-stained thanks to a blow to the mouth he’d taken, 007 backed up and tried words again, “The adrenalin takes longer to fade after someone tries to bloody cave my head in.”

007 _did_ have a head injury, most certainly.  Blood covered half of his skull, in fact, and ran down the left side of his face.  Unfortunately for their captors, that hadn’t stopped him so much as unhinged the last of his control.  “You were also drugged,” Q reminded, suddenly realizing this was a perfect storm: usually, Dragons didn’t need all that much help holding it together on missions, and were able to keep in the rage and fury stemming from their efforts to stay alive until they could get to Lorelei.  They literally had training in how to bottle up emotions.  Right now, though, Bond was three things that made it hard for him to just take deep breaths and keep his cool: he’d just fought for his life and was heavily wounded, he was restrained so he couldn’t defend himself again if necessary, and he’d been drugged by an unknown substance.  Q was feeling increasingly like a mouse caught in a lion’s den as the train moved uncaringly onwards.  If 007 didn’t break the last cuff and make collateral damage out of his Quartermaster, they’d reach a station eventually.

Which was exactly what Q was afraid of.

Bond peeled his lips back from his teeth again, a pained expression before he tipped his head back.  It looked as though he were trying to center himself, but it worked for exactly two seconds before the fight-or-flight response that was so strong in MI6 Dragons kicked in again.  His head dropped and his blue eyes flashed around, looking for threats, looking for openings.  He was as deadly as a loaded gun with a paranoid, angry hand behind it, and the Quartermaster was aware of how lucky he was to be out of reach.  

Another stroke of luck was the absence of Bond’s actual gun, which he’d lost somewhere during the fight.  That hadn’t slowed him much more than the blow to the head had, of course, and anyone who came within reach was swiftly slain in other, more physical ways - Q had helped the process along by stopping his attempts to fake unconsciousness and pushing enemy operatives right into 007’s waiting arms.  Perhaps it said something about his morals, but Q was a bit proud of himself for being helpful like that.  

Now, his eyes locked on where the weapon was discarded, lying next to a dark-haired man’s unmoving head, still too close to Bond for comfort.  Bond had seen it too, in almost the same moment, and his eyes narrowed distrustfully as the Quartermaster stepped towards it.  Raising his hands in a harmless gesture but not knowing what else to say, Q eased further forward, preparing to throw himself back if 007 lunged again.  He wasn’t dealing with the man he’d gone out drinking with - he was dealing with a Dragon.  Bond’s cautious look flared to one of anger as he realized that Q was going for the gun, and he actually roared at him, taking a threatening step closer before being brought up short by the cuff again.  Thankfully, that jarred some distant sort of sense into him, because James squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, creating a window for the Quartermaster to skitter the last few steps forward.  Wisely, he made no effort to reach down and grab the gun, but instead kicked it further away as soon as he could, eliminating the threat for both of them.  “How long before you have no interest in killing everything that moves?” he had to ask, voice shaky.

The answer was a long time coming, as tremors like miniature seizures worked their way up and down 007’s taut limbs.  “Ten minutes,” he finally ground out after rolling the words around behind his tense jaw.  He’d clenched both fists until the split knuckles were bleeding.  

“We don’t have ten minutes,” Q shook his head, “This train is going to reach a station in less than that, if I’m correct.  This door is stuck, but people might  get in the other one.  Innocent people.”

Bond’s eyes said that the word ‘innocent’ didn’t even register right now.  With a shiver, Q began to realize how a mindset like this could make 00-agents the best at what they did: no remorse, no hesitation, no second-guessing.  Flat and amoral eyes watched Q through a crackling haze of rage.  Sometimes when people thought about the top spies of MI6, they forgot that they did one thing better than spying, and that was assassination - they simply didn’t do it quite as often.  

Bond was actually acting just as expected for someone who had just finished fighting for their life and being beaten severely, only this was multiplied exponentially because he was a Dragon, and there was no fast off-switch.  When those unsuspecting people boarded the train, anyone who stumbled in here was going to die.

Q swallowed.  Actually, there was perhaps one off-switch.

“Easy, Bond,” he said uncertainly, hands still raised, but feet now bringing him inching slowly closer.  He swore inside his head as the agent got tenser, drawing himself up and looking like a big wolf with his jaws still smeared red.  “James, easy - you know me.”

The words seeped out of 007’s mouth like smoke, suffocating and lethal, “I know most of the people I kill.  Or, at least, _they_ think I do.”

Shuddering and feeling his heart hammer jackrabbit-fast behind his ribs, Q reminded himself viciously that he didn’t have a choice right now - not if he wanted everyone to survive to see tomorrow.  Even if Bond didn’t hurt anyone in the state he was in, someone else was liable to shoot _him_ just on principle.  The smaller man got closer until he realized with a terrifying jolt that he was now within arms’ reach.  007 hadn’t moved yet, although his eyes were crackling with all of his most dangerous instincts, heat-lightning across the darkened belly of a cloud.  “Sure you know me,” Q kept up his prattle, picking a story at random, “Last week, at Harry’s Bar - you and Alec got me drunk off my arse.  I didn’t realize that you two were goading me on and only pretending to drink until suddenly I was the only one _not_ sober.”

There was no flash of recognition or remembered humour in Bond’s eyes, but he still hadn’t surged forward.  Q was barely a meter away now, but hesitated to reach forward.  He was also hesitant to open up his inner eye any further, to see just how far their captors had pushed James’s killer instincts.  Usually, Q could use his skills as a Fury from a distance, but considering his low level of power and the clearly high level of 007’s rage, he’d probably have to initiate physical contact.  Bugger.

He felt like he was going to be sick as he remembered Eve’s cautionary words back at the pub, telling him how not just any Fury could strut up to a 00-agent and bring them back from the killing edge, that precipice of rage with its endless chasm below.  He didn’t even know if he was doing this correctly so far, or if this was just the calm before the storm, and he’d be dead in a few minutes.

“I imagine that anyone who was there knows me rather well after that,” Q finished his story ruefully, sliding one more step forward, unable now to look away from blue eyes that were nearly black with pupil.  Blood dripped from 007’s chin.  “At least I didn’t babble about anything work-related, or I think I’d be labeled a security risk.  You and Alec are both right bastards for finding it all funny.”

Somewhere in the last sentence, one of Q’s hands had found the skin of Bond’s free wrist, shakily hoping to hold it down so it couldn’t move on him.  “I’m going to try and help, all right?” he murmured, terrified that James couldn’t even understand him.  He was just such a bloody _mess_ right now, and suddenly Q absolutely hated the idiots who had set this all up, thinking that they could just thrash James and not expect everything to go to hell.  Steeling himself against the inevitable, Q reached up with his other hand and pressed it against the available bare skin on the side of Bond’s neck.

The agent moved so fast that it was hard to believe that he’d just been beaten up and drugged.  The hand Q had been ostensibly holding down slipped free of his grip like a snake, jerking the Quartermaster around and locking closed across his throat like a flexing iron bar.  Q gasped, but he still had skin-on-skin contact, and somehow the shock of Bond’s attack didn’t distract him - if anything, it startled the younger man into opening up his inner eye and turning on his weak Fury powers as far as they could go.

If anger was a fire, then Furies were a little bit fire-proof, depending on how strong they were.  Q thought of himself as a person who went around and snuffed out little fires in Q-branch before they could find more fuel and grow into something worse - something he couldn’t handle.  This, though… the anger contained beneath 007’s skin at nearly being killed… this wasn’t a flickering match, this was a burning _sun_.  

The shock of it made Q’s lungs seize, so for a moment he didn’t care that he was being held in a firm and brutal choke-hold.  He felt like he’d just jumped into the heart of a furnace, as if he were in the embrace of a phoenix on the crux of burning itself to ash.  This was the true deadliness of a 00-agent: this anger, this ranting, raving, agonizing fury.  Bond was choking on it, and the Quartermaster did the only thing he could and threw open the doors, letting it in.  Q’s senses flickered and winked out under the onslaught, which was like pressurized heat in his head, neck, chest - slowly spreading until he felt like his skin would split at the seams.  Only the thinnest veil was he able to keep wrapped around his own thoughts, otherwise he was afraid that he’d forget where his emotions ended and Bond’s began.  

After the longest minute in eternity, the tidal wave ended, and Q felt his knees buckling for a second before the arm locked around his neck pulled back and, with the same lightning reflexes, relocated itself to his chest, where it tightened snugly again.  His ears were ringing and his head felt stuffed full of marshmallows and hot lead, but he could still hear 007 swearing behind him as the agent took his weight and stopped trying to kill him.  “Bloody _fuck_ , Q, are you all right!?” the man demanded with more emotion than Q had probably ever heard out of him - at least, emotion that sounded like worry.  They both sank to the ground before 007’s one-armed grip slipped.  

Q coughed a few times, belatedly realizing that his neck hurt, too.  “I don’t want to think about how close I just came to having my windpipe crushed,” he croaked with absolute sincerity, his words slurring a little because his head didn’t feel like it was entirely screwed on.  

“You’re bloody lucky that I didn’t kill you,” the agent reproached in a hard, gravel tone.  Fortunately, the anger in his words was completely within normal, non-Dragon levels, and his frowning blue eyes were alert and no longer wild.  “Do you have any idea how hard it was not to try and snap you _in half_?”

“It was either that or risk you going psychotic on someone else!” Q gathered himself enough to snap back, glaring.  

A muscle ticked in Bond’s jaw, but his blue eyes looked more than merely irked - they looked as if Q had just scared him.  Or maybe he’d scared himself.  “Don’t do that again,” he finally grumbled, turning away and looking around, probably for someone likely to have the key to his remaining cuff.  

“Oh, don’t worry,” Q huffed as he slouched back bonelessly against the vertical pole, not caring that he was sagging back under 007’s manacled hand, “I won’t.  I’m trained at hacking, coding, and miscellaneous mechanics and tech - not being a Fury for 00-agents.”

“Well, at least it was you,” Bond murmured distractedly.  When Q cracked an eye open, the agent was stretching a foot out to hook one of their dead foe’s ankles.  Once he’d nudged that close enough, he grabbed it with his hand, dragging the corpse close enough to check pockets as if this were totally normal for him.  

“What do you mean, ‘at least it was me’?” Q asked back in bewilderment.  

No luck in the keys department.  Bond sighed and looked up towards the front of the train as it began slowing.  The conductor was dead, but the train was automated, and hardly cared whether its human denizens were alive or not.  “I almost killed you just now, but anyone else,” Bond eventually answered in a low and tight tone, “it wouldn’t have been _almost_.  I managed to hold back, because I knew that M would skin me alive if I damaged her new Quartermaster.”

Somehow, that managed to be funny - or maybe the fading adrenalin was leaving Q a bit hysterical.  He barked out a little laugh before getting to his feet to help Bond find the keys to the handcuff, and was a bit alarmed when he wobbled.  “My head feels like jelly.  How does Lorelei _do_ this over and over again?”

“Usually it isn’t this bad,” Bond replied back, and Q had enough of his wits still about him to note that the agent was more chatty than usual.  Even when he and Alec were buying Q drinks at the pub, he’d gotten the feeling that they always had exquisite control over what they were saying, and 007 in particular didn’t say a lot.  Now, though, with the fury gone from his eyes and his weight squatted down on his haunches while he waited for Q to find the key, 007 thought a moment before continuing without a hitch, “I’ve only ever lost it that badly… three times before.  All of them were after excessive torture, but now I’m going to have to add drugging to the bloody list.”  

Q nodded, because he had to admit that drugging a Dragon of Bond’s calibre had been a bad idea.  “Medical will want to find out what it was.  It just knocked me out, but it turned you into a berserker,” Q noted, and midway through feeling into a shirt-pocket, he realized that he was kneeling over a corpse.  He blinked, having a hard time processing that.

“All right, Q?”

“Just surprised at how easy this is,” Q replied after a moment, finally finding the keys.  His stomach did a little roll as he saw all of the blood smeared on the knees of his trousers.  “I should be more bothered, shouldn’t I?”  Instead, he felt strangely hollowed out and detached, as if he’d just had the flu and vomited his guts out, or as if the rush of playing Fury for Bond’s darker emotions had sloshed his own around until his brain was like a pool of muddy water.  He’d have to wait for the silt to settle out before he could correctly emote, he suspected.

“Bothered by the bodies, or that I nearly killed you?” returned Bond a bit warily, raising one brow.  He calmly watched Q approach, and in a show of ungoded obedience rare for agents, held his cuff out for Q to unlock.  

Q swayed again and had to brace one hand against the metal pole.  Bond’s free hand reached up and grabbed his waist, steadying him further.  “Both,” he said a moment later, and then finally fumbled around until he had the agent loose.  Bond immediately stood up, eyes moving about now with level watchfulness, body only slightly stiff despite the injuries he’d suffered.  If Q hadn’t felt as if his brain were a pummelled mess (he’d resigned himself to leaning heavily on the pole, blinking torpidly and dreading the headache that was probably going to set in later), he might have taken more note of the fact that 007 naturally kept close enough to touch, and still had a hand on his Quartermaster’s waist.  It was an abrupt transition, considering that the blond-haired man had had only passing interest in Q as a friend up until this point, and generally gave the Quartermaster the same professional distance he gave everyone else.  “We’ll be coming to the station soon,” he had the presence of mind to remind.  The station meant people, witnesses, and questions.  

Instead of appearing worried by that, James’s attentive frown moved back to Q, and the Quartermaster dazedly put up with the calloused hand that checked his pulse by pushing two fingers to the soft skin under his jaw, then took hold of his chin to turn his head and look at Q’s eyes.  “What level of Fury did you say you were again?” he asked.

“While drunk,” Q conceded, only vaguely remembering the details of the night, his sluggish brain making it harder still, “I said a five.”

“But Alec and I noted that you’re a compulsive liar when drunk,” 007 immediately returned.

For a moment, Q pulled in a breath to deny that, but then he realized that he was dealing with a world-class spy here.  So, instead, he shrugged and admitted, “It was a lie.  I register as a three.”

“Shit,” Bond muttered, pressing the back of his hand now to Q’s forehead.  “M’s going to put my head up on the wall for getting you into this position.”  With that, the agent finally seemed able to detach himself from Q’s side, and it was shocking how quickly he wiped the worst of the visible blood from his skin onto his button-down shirt, and then hid that by swapping out jackets with one of the dead men.  It was quick work, and while James still looked as rough as a fox dragged backwards out of a chicken-coop, he still managed to get the two of them out of the train and far away before people chanced upon the bodies.  

~^~

_Present_

~^~

“We’ve contained them as best we could,” said the foreign official in heavily accented English, walking swiftly to keep up with Q’s pace.  

Eve was at Q’s other side, her gait as smooth and easy as a cat’s, but her eyes sympathetic and just managing to hide worry in their chocolaty depths.  “We gave them the formula for some sedatives, so hopefully James and the others will be-”

“They are _not_ asleep,” the official interrupted with very clear fear in his eyes.  That was all that was said on the matter, as Q and his companions were ushered past guards into a small anteroom - and visible beyond that, separated by bars, stood James Bond, Alec Trevelyan, and the present 002 agent, Saul Mason.  Q swallowed and clenched his fists, refusing to show that he was still nauseous from the plane.

And terrified.  

Outwardly, he looked like what MI6 had hired and valued: the youngest Quartermaster to ever set foot in MI6, and as deadly efficient at his job as any man could possibly get, scholarly glasses notwithstanding.  He’d dealt with all of these agents before - he’d had the audacity to berate them, question their idiotic decisions, and yell at them both over comm-links and to their faces.  He’d stood his ground when they’d had occasion to yell back.  

He was also a Fury, he reminded himself, and despite the fact that he was a weak one, he was the only hope of bringing these agents back to themselves.  That alone gave him the extra will he needed to push the nauseating fear down where he couldn’t hear it jibbering madly in the back of his head.    

“They’re injured?” he asked in a stern tone, not taking his eyes from the adjoining holding cell.  The three men inside were standing or sitting with predatory grace - too much of it to be normal.  The only sign that they’d been sedated in any way was the fact that they were, at least, _still_.  Three sets of eyes had locked immediately on the newcomers, each gaze crackling with enough blistering, mute threat to just about raise the temperature of the room, the lethal opposite of M’s ability to lower it.  Q winced internally as he looked at the cell, knowing that confinement only made things worse, but there was nothing for it.  

“Mason - that one,” the official pointed to the brown-haired agent leaning against the wall at the back of the holding cell, “sustained a gunshot wound, but it wasn’t life-threatening.  They were out for just long enough for us to patch up the worst of it.  Any further attempts to…”  His voice dropped off and he had to visibly collect himself.  Q was tempted to ask if anyone had been injured in the attempt, but decided that he’d leave that to the diplomats.  Post-mission 00-agents had a bad record with healthcare personnel in general.  

“I guess…” Q finally said, his courage almost deserting him before he managed to grab hold of it with both hands; it squirmed and tried to flee.  The Quartermaster shuddered and wished he had a weapon in his hands, even if that would only make James and the others more defensive.  “I guess I have to go in then,” he finished, wishing his voice didn’t sound so hollowed out.  At least no one seemed to blame him; he was getting some dreadfully sympathetic looks, the kind that were probably given to martyrs, too.  Q was ticking off the list in his head, the list of things that made Dragons more… Dragon-ish… when already angered.  Injury, confinement, and drugging.  This was the train-car all over again, only with more than just 007.  

“We’ll be right here, Q,” Eve’s hand was on his shoulder, squeezing with surprising strength in her graceful fingers.  She didn’t say what good their presence would do: Would they shoot the agents if they attacked Q?  With bullets this time instead of untrustworthy tranqs?  Both Moneypenny and the official were armed, and more guards were waiting just outside, ready to pour in, no doubt.  Q pursed his lips and frowned stubbornly at the thought, forcing himself to take a step forward, if only because he was not going to have _his_ agents put down on _his_ watch.  

“Open the door for me,” the Quartermaster ordered, finally managing to sound more sure than he was.  

The official tried to talk him out of it, but was ignored, and finally gave in with a sigh.  Q wasn’t one-hundred percent sure what everyone expected to happen, or for him to do, and what little Moneypenny had told him on the plane about Lorelei’s work had been jumbled together with Q’s fear of flying.  That, combined with the adrenalin and anxiety he was consumed by now, meant that Q’s thoughts were more or less a desperate blank as he was ushered swiftly in.  The door locked equally swiftly behind him, ensuring that the Dragons didn’t get out, and also sealing Q in.  

Q had seen a dog-fight once.  A friend of his had recklessly convinced him to come see one, when they were both young.  Q hadn’t had the stomach to stay long, but he remembered the viciousness, and he also remembered the way the dogs had panted with bared teeth, dripping blood, even after the battle was over - because they knew, somewhere in their minds, that another was coming.  As Q now looked at the faces of James, Alec, and the injured Saul, he saw that same look: the fight for their lives would never end.  Sadly, they weren’t even wrong about this, and Q felt sympathy and sadness wash through him, because the life of a 00-agent was one long fight - and, like those pit-fighting dogs, it only took one mistake and they’d be the ones dragged out of the ring, heartbeat still and no more life in them.  

And then the growling started.

It was a low vibration, almost subsonic at first, but coming from three chests, it built quickly.  Q’s ears all but twitched when it reached the range for him to pick it up, and he sucked in a gasp and immediately had to resist the urge to retreat.  He did take one step back involuntarily, and in that second, Trevelyan threw off some of the drugged slowness in his eyes, and moved with a speed no normal human being could have.

Dragons were fast - superhumanly so.  Ones riding the worst kind of rage-fueled high?  Those were _faster_.  Q’s eyes barely had a chance to widen before he was being caught by two massively powerful hands and slammed into a wall so hard that he felt sure that his vertebrae and shoulder-blades all splintered against the stone wall he was shoved against.  The pain was sudden and excruciating, and the only thing that kept him from crying out was that the wind had been knocked clean out of his lungs.  His brain spun dizzily, suspended in shock like a fly in amber, and he only distantly heard shouting and felt one of 006’s hands shift and fold around his chin, beginning to push his head to the side - creating tension in Q’s neck that would swiftly reach a point where it would be incompatible with life.  There was nothing he could even think to do to stop it.  

Then Bond was there.  Q’s ears were working just fine, even if his brain was struggling to catch up with everything and translate, so he heard how the low-level, predatory growling suddenly thundered into an absolutely demonic pitch.  Before 006 could do any proper damage to his Quartermaster, 007 broadsided him, packed muscle and bone colliding to wrench Alec away.  Q was left gasping and staggering, ignoring how his glasses had slipped down his nose in favor of just staring at the violence next to him, as 006’s anger was forced to redirect itself.  Bond was a bloody fast bastard, though, and already had one of 006’s arms twisted up behind him.  Both were actually snarling out words now - thick, guttural, definitely Russian - with such wrath that it would probably peel paint off the side of a building.  When it didn’t seem like his weight would be sufficient to keep Alec pinned face-first to the wall, 007 swiftly and ruthlessly dislocated Alec’s arm.  The pop of the socket was sickening, and the worst part?  It didn’t slow either of them down.  006 roared, green eyes slitted with wrath and teeth bared, and 007’s winter-cold eyes made it clear that if Alec was prepared to fight, then he was ready to _break_ his friend’s arm next.  Unhesitantly.  

From his place on the opposite side of the room, 002 slowly pushed himself up, weaker and shakier than the other two.  ‘Kill-or-be-killed’ was written all over his face, however, and his usually suave complexion was twisted with a dangerous grimace as he braced his weight against the wall.

Everything was already going to hell, and it had been only seconds.  Q forced himself to ignore the snarling, ignore the shouting for him to get out of the way so people could open fire, and focused his attention on 007.

Looking as viciously efficient as any dragon of lore, 007 looked back at him.  Somewhere behind the viciousness and killer-instincts, something familiar flickered, and the blond-haired agent didn’t budge an inch from 006’s back when Q began walking up to him.  

“If you try and turn on me now, I swear I’ll sic M on you faster than you can say ‘minions’,” Q warned under his breath with a terrified brand of humor, and then rushed the last few steps forward and pressed his hand to the nearest patch of bare skin he could find.  Ironically, just like last time, that happened to be the bare skin of 007’s neck, because there was no way Q was going near his hands.  Knowing that he was going to regret this later - if he lived that long - Q instantaneously threw open the gates to his inner eye, and let himself stop being the Quartermaster for awhile, and be a Fury instead.  

He heard himself shriek at the force of the wrathful emotions that immediately consumed the world around him.  

He was walking into an inferno again - consciously, willingly.  This was the most idiotic thing he had ever done; it _hurt_.  The initial wave of it battered him around so much that he lost the definition for the word ‘hurt’ and was occupied merely with keeping his brain in one piece.  Distantly, somewhere in the heart of that fire-storm, he felt a second consciousness wrap around him, all iron strength and coiled familiarity, doing something to at least make sure Q wasn’t overwhelmed completely.  It made the pain back off to a bearable level, even if the Quartermaster still felt like someone way out of their league.  This was the very definition of biting off more than one could chew, by dint of him being a pathetic Level 3 on the Fury scale, but he firmed up his resolve and kept at it.  He came back to himself with one hand clamped white-knuckled on the nape of Bond’s neck and his head curled in against the agent’s shoulder.  He blinked down at Bond’s elbow, feeling like his head was full of marshmallows and lead.  Again.  

“Q.  Q, you have to bloody get Alec, too - I can’t hold him forever!” Bond’s tight, raw voice pulled Q out of his drifting daze, even if it felt like he was scraping his intelligence off the walls of his skull at this point.  A bomb had gone off in his head - an angry, 007-shaped bomb.  Distantly, he wondered if that protective sensation in his head had been James, a sane part of Bond that still remembered that he wasn’t allowed to murder dark-haired, valuable boffins.  

“Right,” Q said, swallowing as his voice came out raspy.  Right.  He’d screamed for a second there.  Or maybe more than a second, he couldn’t recall.  Somehow, Q managed to let go of 007 and reach out with his other hand to where Alec’s dislocated arm was trying to free itself from Bond’s grip.  At the last second, Q realized that he was about to do this again, and fear made an involuntary whine escape piteously up his throat.

Q thought he heard Eve say something encouraging from the other side of the bars, but what he heard mostly was 007’s voice, low and steady right up against the shell of his ear, “You can do it, Q.  Just one more time.  You’re doing so well, Q.”

The words sounded so sincere and compassionate in that last sentence that Q managed to push his powers into action again, opening that internal door even as he grasped desperately at the warm sound of 007’s voice complimenting him.  It was like jumping into a bonfire with nothing but a blanket wrapped around one’s shoulders for protection.  

But somehow, he did it.  

Alec Trevelyan’s fury had a different flavor than 007’s, although Q would never have been able to describe it.  It was a difference that hit every sense at once, from taste to sight to touch to sound, all of it intrinsically Alec-shaped.  The major difference between this and Bond, however, was that there was no kernel of cooperation there - 006 apparently didn’t have the same sort of link to Q that Bond did, and the Quartermaster was entirely certain that Alec would have torn him limb from limb right now if he weren’t being restrained.  As it was, both Q and Trevelyan collapsed to the floor seconds later, panting, gasping, moaning, and swearing.  

“Open the door,” 007’s commanding, authoritative tone was back, as if it had never been lost to the madness of temper.  He was somewhere above Q’s head.  “I’ll hold back Mason.  Someone’s going to need to reset Alec’s arm, and Q can’t handle another one yet.”

“Yes…” Q somehow found himself panting, a part of him wondering when he’d become a masochist as he pushed his arms up under him clumsily, “Yes… I can.  That’s what I was brought here to do, and I’m going to bloody well do it.”

007 already had 002 on the floor, and was sitting on his back.  Other guards had rushed in and were helping hold Mason’s legs while Bond looked with level caution Q’s way.  He seemed to be deciding whether Q was going to spontaneously fall apart or not.  “Fine.  But Moneypenny, you’d better have a doctor standing by.”

“I do,” said the woman, slightly wryly in a way that said she was offended he’d think otherwise, “For all of you idiots.  I’ve also got some of the prescription-strength pain-meds we would usually give…”  She cut off.  Even Q already knew that ‘Lorelei’ was to have been the next word out of her mouth, but the wound was too fresh to even look at.  Q tried to push himself to his feet and nearly face-planted on the floor again.  He only stayed up because Eve and the first security guard caught him, and with worried looks, walked him over to 002.  Unexpectedly, as he reached the remaining infuriated agent’s side, 007 spared a hand to reach up and grip Q’s elbow.  He lowered the Quartermaster down to kneel at his side, where Q leaned gratefully and unashamedly against him.  Once again he found himself staring rather listlessly, brain detached from reason and sight as he watched Saul Mason thrash and curse.  

“Come on, sweetheart,” Eve coaxed, and he jumped a bit as he realized she was grabbing his wrist, pulling it forward until he could wrap it around Saul’s forearm just under a mass of stained bandages.  By now, his senses were so torn open that the connection was instantaneous, and he nearly choked on his own tongue as the emotions rolled into him again.  

He came to with the terrifying sense of lost time, and kicked out against the floor where his legs were folded up like a newborn colt's.  Strong hands around his shoulders kept him from going far.  “Easy, easy!  You’re all right, Q,” Bond’s voice grounded him, giving him context as he brought his eyes into focus - everything was the same as before, right down to 002 being held immobile, except he wasn’t fighting anymore.  007 now had two hands to wrap around Q’s shoulders and hold _him_ still instead.  “You blacked out, but you’re back.  You’re finished.  It’s all done.”

“God, that was horrible,” the words came out in an explosion of breath as Q stopped struggling, letting himself sag instead.  007’s thigh and torso were hot against his side, smelling of copper and burnt things and sweat.  Q tried to decide whether the smell was more unsettling or familiar, but quickly sided with the latter, deciding not to shake off the agent’s arms yet, either.  007 was delightfully solid, and Q needed that right now.  “I feel like someone put a blender into my skull.”

Bond and Eve both made noises that were almost laughter, but a bit too tired for it.  

Saul, still belly-down on the floor, grumbled, “Could I perhaps bother you, 007, to politely get off me?  Now that I know we not only have a lady present, but our benevolent Quartermaster, I’d like to at least regain some semblance of dignity - which I cannot do with you sitting on me.”

~^~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, there's nothing quite like writing about lethally furious 00-agents in confined spaces... (-w-) And the boffins that get confined with them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath. Q has grounded Dragons... but now he's going to return to being just the little 'ole Quartermaster of MI6, after a bit of recovery.
> 
> Or so he thinks. Turns out the 00-agents have other ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I was revising much of the fluff. And there's a lot of it. Much fluff. It starts out with some hurt/comfort and angst, but believe me, after that, it turns into tooth-rotting sweetness :3 Hope you enjoy!

Q… didn’t remember a lot for a stretch after that.  He was vaguely aware of sitting where he was like a puppet with its strings cut, murmuring apologies when he realized that part of the reason Saul couldn’t get up was because Bond couldn’t get up, because Q was in the way.  How was he supposed to get out of the way…?  Thankfully, 007 was in good enough shape to solve that, arms shifting their grip and managing to take his fatigued Quartermaster up with him as he stood, gently denying Eve’s help.  Bond had to be worn out and exhausted himself, but he did a marvelous job of making sure Q didn’t end up on the floor again, and the boffin was pretty sure that he ended up napping on his feet while the 00-agent kept hold of him.  That would doubtlessly be embarrassing later, but probably no more embarrassing than three 00-agents nearly going homicidal on the world at large.

“Ahh! My head…” Q came to himself next with a tight, breathy gasp of complaint.  He was sitting now, in a chair, he realized.  Something moving and warm immediately shifted next to him.

“Here.  You drifted off before Moneypenny could get any medication into you,” Bond’s voice filtered into Q’s ears, making the Quartermaster wince a bit, even though the agent was talking very softly.  A hand appeared, palm up and open beneath Q’s nose with two white pills on it, and a glass of water took up residence on the chair-arm between them.  

“Thank you,” Q managed to murmur past the thickness still filling his skull, and he took in his surroundings as best he could while chasing down the two painkillers with water.  They appeared to be in a simple waiting room of sorts, possibly still in the same facility.  007 was sitting awfully close, and looked almost exactly as he had back in the cell: rumpled, ruffled, and beaten up around the edges.  But calm steadiness radiated from him now instead of bristling temper, and his eyes watched Q with level blueness like mountain lakes.  “Shouldn’t you be getting medical attention?” Q asked, keeping his words slow and hushed both because he didn’t think he head could take the noise, and because he was afraid the words would get lost somewhere between his battered brain and his mouth.  “Or a shower?”

One side of 007’s mouth quirked up, and he glanced away as if to hide the warm trickle of amusement.  “Don’t like my company?”

“Not _used_ to your company,” Q corrected in a mumble, finishing off the glass and then pushing his fingers up under his glasses to rub at his eyes.  “Can you get the lights, please?  It feels like I’ve got a migraine.”

Instead of verbally answering, 007 got up without hesitation.  The room was windowless, so it was unsurprising that Q heard the door opening.  Bond murmured something to whoever was outside, and then the room went dark with the flick of a lightswitch; just a sliver of brightness came past the ajar door, and that was blocked by 007’s broad-shouldered figure as he padded back.  The agent took up his previous post again, sitting in the chair pulled up next to Q’s and taking over the armrest in between like it was his right.  It also brought their shoulders flush against each other.  

“How are you feeling?” Bond asked.  His voice probably wasn’t unreadable, but as it was, Q didn’t have the necessary brain capacity to parse it out.  

“Pretty much like a Level 3 Fury should feel after grounding three enraged Dragons,” Q sighed tightly.  “My skull is full of cotton-balls.  Painful cotton-balls.  And why the hell again are you keeping me company?  No offense.”

“None taken,” 007 replied easily enough, before continuing with a shocking lack of prompting for a man who had to be threatened with bodily injury just to give a mission report on time, “Believe it or not, my kind are the leading authority on Furies - because Furies are something of a necessity for our good health.  So everyone here trusts that I’ll be the first to notice if your condition goes south.  Alec and Saul could have done the same for you, but they’re more bashed up than I am.”

“My condition?”  Q’s brain was far too slow for this talk, but he made an effort to lift his head and eye 007 in the dimness.  It put their faces uncomfortably close, but the 00-agent didn’t seem to mind.

“You already passed out once, Q.  And I shouldn’t have to remind you that you just did the work of a Level 9 Fury - that can and has killed people in the past.”

Q blinked, and sank back in his chair.  007 was a searing but comfortable line of warmth against his left side.  “Oh.  I see.”  He blinked some more, because that seemed like the most coherent skill he had at the moment.  “So you’re playing nursemaid then?”

“That’s a horrible way to put it, and my pride may never recover, but yes.”

“Did you just make a joke?”

“Yes, Q,” Bond sighed, relaxing as well, one foot nudging Q’s seemingly by accident as the 00-agent stretched out his legs, “I did.  How about you go back to sleep?  I promise I’ll wake you up if anything interesting happens.”

“Ah, yes,” the smaller man found himself parroting, even as the power of suggestion added leaden weight to his eyelids.  The painkillers hadn’t kicked in yet, so the escape of unconsciousness sounded indecently heavenly.  “Sleep.  That… that might be a good idea.”  A worrisome idea roused him, and he flopped his head to one side to look at Bond again, frowning.  “I’m not going to lapse into a coma or have a stroke because of this, am I?”

The meagre light just barely limned the contours of 007’s rugged face, but it hinted at a quick smile as the man let loose a brief chuffing noise.  Unexpectedly, a hand and then an arm slid behind Q’s neck, providing a much better cushion than the back of the chair.  Q once again found himself flummoxed by how talkative and touch-friendly 007 was, post-rage, when Q was the one playing Fury.  As with the time on the train, the Quartermaster was too exhausted and wrung out to give it more than a brief ponder before he just went with it.  “No, Quartermaster, that’s not going to happen,” Bond’s low voice reassured, “You already survived the worst of it.”

The worst of it probably equalled the three Dragons themselves.  “Hmm.  Thank you for that, by the way,” Q murmured as his eyes closed.

“For what?  Oh, you mean for getting Alec,” 007 quickly caught on, and Q opened his eyes just enough to see what might have been an displeased grimace.  The bicep under his cheek flexed slightly.  “I admit that I don’t remember a lot of that very clearly,” Bond said uncomfortably, “but I know that Alec is bloody sorry.”

Q was about to make some comment about how a dislocated (and possibly broken) arm did a lot to make even big, bad agents sorry, but he drifted off to sleep in the middle of the thought.  Q was also pretty sure that his thank you had actually been for that sensation of another mind wrapping around his - Bond’s mind, holding back the worst of the fire, keeping his Quartermaster, his _Fury_ , safe even when 007 was the furthest thing from safe.  

He was aware, on a subliminal level, of 007 close to him the whole time he was out.  

~^~

It was official: Dragons were uncommonly touchy-feeling after being brought down from a rage.  Q was almost to the point of calling it _cuddly_ , and it was damn eerie.  Q didn’t get to properly appreciate this, because he was pretty much a mobile marshmallow for the next forty-eight hours: his brain was thick and squishy, and he mostly just did as he was prodded to do.  However, all of that prodding seemed to come from Alec, James, or Saul, and Q’s fragility was offset by the buffer of muscle and raw power that was constantly circled up around him.  Like a sleepwalker, he drifted through the next two days, various moments making faint impressions on the soreness of his mind.  

Waking up with Bond still with him, hearing the blue-eyed Dragon talking to Trevelyan.  The feeling of Bond’s arm slipping out from behind his head, and Q barely tensing his neck muscles to support the weight of his own skull before he realized he didn’t have to, because Alec was already cupping his head, sliding into the space Bond had vacated.  “I’ll watch him, James.  Take a shower,” he heard 006 commanding, before he was gently tugged closer to Alec’s uninjured side.  It was warm there.  

Saul’s voice, coaxing him to drink more water, only the water turned out to taste an awful lot like medicine of some wretched kind.  It made his head hurt a bit less, though.  Drifting off to soft chuckles that sounded a lot more sincere than what usually came out of 002’s mouth, and then pleasant noises that might have been Saul singing - gentle and lyrical, like jazz, or maybe like Gaelic.  Q’s brain was too thick to contemplate what languages this 00-agent knew.  

Walking, but unsure how or why he was walking.  Blinking fuzzily and realizing that the only reason he was upright was because he was bracketed on either side by someone far more coordinated than he was: James and Saul, more than capable of bearing his weight.  Glancing forward and blinking groggily, Q noted Alec, one arm in a sling, padding on ahead of them, meaning that Q’s entire world was made up of Dragons.  He felt a big hand squeeze his side slightly, and though he heard Bond murmur something in an encouraging tone - right into his ear, gentle and low - he’d never remember the words later.  He turned his head as if in slow motion, and met crystalline blue eyes and a smile that was hiding worry with fondness.  

Being on the plane, and realizing that he was more awake than he’d been in some time.  Realizing, too, that he’d probably been drugged for his own sanity, but that it wasn’t working.  The first rumble of the plane getting into motion had him struggling up out of his seat, only to find that hands were on him instantly: Dragons had fast reflexes, and Bond’s were the fastest.  It helped that the man had apparently been seated right next to him.  Q’s usual phobia of flying seemed worse than usual, however, as if the logic that usually kept the fear at least tied down had been unmoored.  Later, he’d look back and realize that he’d bottled up and preserved a heady dose of the rage he’d been inundated with back in that cell.  There were reasons that Level 3 Furies weren’t meant to ground Dragons, and those reasons went beyond the simple threat of being dismembered in the process.  Not only were higher-level Furies more capable of withstanding the impact of that much emotion, but they had the capabilities to dissipate it, while Q didn’t really know how.  Therefore Q, in a fashion very unlike the levelheaded Quartermaster he usually was, flew into a very real rage right there on the plane.  

And James, Saul, and Alec handled it as easily as a falconer handled a new eyass on their glove.

MI6 had splurged to bring their best home, it seemed: a private jet turned into the perfect place to deal with an unreasonable, illogically angry Quartermaster.  There was a lot more room to move and a lot less people and seats in the way, and Q vaguely recalled Bond telling Eve to let them handle this, speaking in the most utterly calm voice in the world.  The same voice he used for chatting up supervillains and relaying specs on a bomb he needed help defusing.  

Q remembered punching Alec.  It was a remarkably vivid memory: the way the man’s powerful body absorbed the blow, his stomach muscles taut beneath Q’s knuckles - looking up, wild, and finding the man’s mouth tilted upwards grimly at one side.  Before Q could go for the man’s bad arm, acting on instincts he hadn’t known he’d had but felt on fire right now, Bond had gripped him from behind, a brawny arm locking around his middle and whirling him away.  Q caught a brief glimpse of Moneypenny’s rather horrified expression before he was grappling with 007, panic and anger and too many emotions to name swarming through him like an unleashed storm.  

“That’s it, Q,” Bond soothed even as they fought, “Just work your way through it.  It’ll all pass.”  Q tried to knee Bond, but the 00-agent responded by swiping his feet out from under him, toppling them both onto one of the jet’s thick couches.  Q felt like a livewire, and struggled so hard that he wasn’t under Bond for long, and the two of them rolled off the couch and onto the floor.  Q didn’t realize that he was crying until he choked on a furious snarl, and felt wetness on his face.  He found that he could barely see Bond beneath him through the tears, and all of his punches kept missing, even before he realized that he was shaking like a leaf.  Later, he’d look back and realize that he’d never witnessed such gentleness from three trained assassin-spies before, as they fought with him but didn’t hurt him.  A few times, they restrained him, but since that didn’t do anyone an ounce of good, they mostly just let Q have his way like a mad dervish in their midst, and perhaps it made sense that three seasoned fighters could work together to wear out one emotionally compromised boffin.  

“There you go, Q,” he remembered hearing, when he was physically exhausted but still felt like he was ripping apart inside: feeling too much, finding no control.  James’s voice sifted through the madness, as did the touch of his hands as he eased Q to the floor when the younger man’s legs gave out.  It always seemed like Bond was the closest, the omnipresent entity, barely leaving Q’s fractured awareness for a moment before he came back in some way.  Eyes so full of tears that he could barely see, Q nonetheless saw the other two Dragons closing in on him, too, and parted his lips in a primitive snarl - but it turned into a confused, frustrated sob as his emotions shifted without warning, as changeable as a rough sea.  He didn’t know what he was feeling from one second to the next, and he was regaining enough sense to be _scared_ by that.  

Bond was sitting behind him, however, and 002 reached out to pull one of Q’s legs out from under him when it looked like Q would fold up into an uncoordinated heap on top of them.  Moneypenny was still watching from across the room, but she looked…  Q wasn’t sure, what with tears sticking his eyelashes together, but she looked strangely awed, even as the three 00-agents sorted themselves out so that they were all nearby - close enough to hold Q’s fracturing pieces together.  Q stopped fighting the arms around his belly and chest, and thumped his head back against Bond’s shoulder, desperately wanting some of that solidity as his world continue to shake.  

Furies who took on more anger from others than they could handle tended to get emotional whiplash proportional to whatever emotions they took on.  Q had taken on a helluva lot more than he’d ever been meant to, but 002, 6, and 7 were grateful for the risk that he’d taken for them, and when Q came out of it, they’d never bring up the embarrassingly emotional episode again.  And Eve wouldn’t mention the new levels of respect and understanding in three sets of eyes: Saul Mason, at Q’s feet with one hand still on his ankle; Alec Trevelyan, sitting on the couch with one arm in a sling and the other outstretched with Q’s glasses in his hand, removed to protect them; James Bond, his body like a shield, and eyes never leaving the Quartermaster cradled between his legs.  

~^~

Epilogue

~^~

After that, things changed in both significant and subtle ways.

Q had always been close with all of his agents, being a far more involved Quartermaster than all of his predecessors.  However, he’d always been involved from a distant: a voyeur through a camera, a voice in an earbud, a virus through an email.  Now, though, he suddenly found out how quickly he could be pulled into the thick of the 00-agents’ ranks.  

MI6 had immediately found themselves a new Fury to replace Lorelei, one with the necessarily high ranking to allow him to ground angry Dragons without backsliding into an emotional hailstorm themselves, as Q had.  The reminder that he’d been working above his station embarrassed Q, but clearly his negative opinion of his own skills had no connection to James, Alec, and Saul’s opinions - because even after the new Fury, Don Blakely, joined the team, it was Q who got dragged to all the parties and pubs and basically treated like a walking, talking teddy-bear.  

It was unsettling at first, to realize that he’d been accepted into Lorelai’s position, if only unofficially.  The 00-agents were taking a long time to warm up to Blakely, and fortunately no one had had to call on Blakely’s Fury skills yet, but instead of watching jealously (Q could admit now that it had been jealousy) as the 00-agents coddled another Fury, Q was the one in the thick of things.  Bond and the other two had returned to respecting Q’s personal bubble not long after they’d arrived back in London, leaving Q to regain his health, wits, and dignity, but from the first moment they’d all met up at a local pub, Q had a hand on his wrist, tugging him over to where the agents were at the bar.  James and Alec were there, Saul on another mission, but 008 immediately vacated his seat, and Q was sitting between 006 and 7 before he knew it.  He blinked, surprised, and remained surprised as the two men continuously rubbed shoulders with him, seeming almost to take turns like large, contented cats.  

Q wanted to protest, to ask if this was some big practical joke… but the feeling of belonging was simply too addictive to fight.  He recalled how James had been unconsciously more talkative and social after the fiasco on the train, and saw similar reactions now, only with more 00-agents.  

For days after that, Q thought that it was just a passing thing, and he recalled that night at the pub in the wistful way that other people probably recalled good one-night stands.  Alec and James had missions, and most of the other agents hadn’t survived harrowing missions with only their Quartermaster to pull them through, so surely it wouldn’t be long before Don Blakely would be the center of attention.  Right?  

Wrong.  

Bond had survived another mission, and Eve had survived it with him, so as soon as the two were cleared from Medical, it was all hands on deck for a fun night on the town - all of their colleagues who were currently in Britain were invited to a club Eve liked, and Q obliged to leave his branch and join.  As soon as he tried to take up his customary seat on the outskirts of the action, however, and nurse his drink, he sensed someone approaching on his six.  He didn’t even get a chance to turn before he heard Bond’s low rumble of laughter, and was unceremoniously swept along in the man’s wake as 007 headed for the sofa seating that 003 and 5 had already claimed.  Q tried to dig his heels in a bit out of surprise, squawking out Bond’s name, but the muscular arm around his shoulders slipped upwards to become more of a playful headlock, and before he knew it, Q was being released to plop down onto a sofa-cushion.  Bond sat next to him, immediately sprawling like he owned the place (typical of him), which included an arm slung familiarly along the couch behind Q (which was less typical).  

Briefly, 003 and 5 eyed the boffin, 003 being a man particularly known for his frosty demeanor - but then they visibly shrugged, relaxed, and shocked Q by accepting him.  “Relax, Q,” Bond suggested, although he didn’t seem to truly understand Q’s bewilderment as he continued, “The stress of work will still be waiting for you when you get back.  Have a drink.  Be a normal person for a change.”  The words were less startling than the hand that briefly curled in and ruffled the back of Q’s hair, making him jump.

“ _Someone_ left my drink back there,” Q collected himself enough to grouse, spreading his hands, showing that they were empty.  Bond actually looked confused for a moment, before glancing back to the table he’d effectively snatched Q from.  Where Q’s drink was sitting, abandoned.  

Then 005 sat down, so close on Q’s left that they were flush, side-by-side, in an instant.  Her generous curves were unabashedly pressed against him, enough to make him gulp and flush and remember rather abruptly why he was pansexual.  The female agent held out a glass and said easily, “Have mine.  If James doesn’t have manners-”

“I have manners,” Bond protested at a growl, but his posture remained relaxed, almost lazy.  Q thought about how at ease all of the agents had been around Lorelei, and realized that that was _him_ now.  He didn’t think that he was doing anything, but then again, Lorelei had apparently spent her time passively siphoning off the tempers of the Dragons around her - so maybe it wasn’t something that took any _doing_ at all.  Before Q could get lost in thoughts of research and facts, 005 pushed the drink into his hands, and James’s arm just _happened_ to slip until it was sloped across the back of Q’s neck like a warm, heavy scarf.  

This interaction set the pace for every social event to follow.  While Q got reports saying that Blakely was doing a decent job of grounding the 00-agents when they were at their worst, the Dragons of MI6 just never seemed to warm up to the man.  To be fair, Blakely was a little bit stuffy - but then again, most people called Q stuffy, and yet he was dragged onto Alec’s lap at the next party they went to.  Q did his best to remain professional the whole time, but that didn’t dissuade the attending 00-agents in the slightest, and Alec… was surprisingly comfortable to sit on.  Q ended up giving in with a little huff and an ill-concealed blush of happiness when Trevelyan rubbed a hand up and down his back and prevented his escape.  001 ‘stole’ him about ten minutes later, artfully toppling Q from Alec’s lap and sweeping him onto the dance-floor, which was a whole new experience that excited and terrified Q in equal measure: Q was not a dancer, but neither was he generally people’s first pick for a partner.  And yet, 001 was soon swaying against him, smiling bright and easy, and giving all indications that she adored Q’s presence even as he tried not to trip on his own two feet.  

Truth be told, he was quite happy to be ‘stolen’ again before things got too wild, this time with 007 coming up behind him like a solid wall of heat against his back.  “Mind if I cut in?”  It wasn’t really a question, but as always, it seemed that all of MI6’s most deadly agents were as mellow as lizards on sunny rocks, so 001 merely winked and waved and let Q go.  Luckily for the frayed edges of Q’s professionalism, Bond seemed to realize that grinding amidst a sea of bodies wasn’t exactly Q’s idea of a good time, and tugged him back to the edge of the dance-floor.  Once there, the music shifted, and Bond paused just a moment to eye Q in a considering way, unreadable except for the small, minxome smile at one corner of his mouth.  

“What?” Q asked, literally wondering if he had something on his face.  That was the only logical explanation for James’s intense interest.

“Do you know this song?”

The question didn’t really clarify Bond’s Cheshire expression, so Q beetled his brows and answered honestly, “No.  I don’t even think this is entirely in English.”

Bond might have made an accepting noise, but it was hidden behind the throbbing music - Q caught his nod, however, a moment before Bond was gently bullying him into turning around.  A bit more used to the touchy-feely side of a Dragon’s nature by this point, Q only jumped a little in surprise as Bond stayed behind him, wrapping arms about his waist and keeping him close.  007 gentled him by rocking slightly, a movement usually reserved for children who didn’t want to settle and sleep, but Q found it comforting, and it allowed him to take a deep breath and accept that he was being _cuddled_ by MI6’s best.  He tentatively rested his hands on Bond’s forearms, feeling warm skin and corded muscle where Bond’s sleeves were rolled up, and sighed heavily to show what he thought of all this.  The fact that his put-out airs were all lies was beside the point.    

Thinking that this was just one of those odd moments where a Dragon wanted… whatever it was they got when they were physically close to a Fury… Q just let himself be held, and was unprepared when James leaned close to his ear and began to softly murmur in his ear.  It took a few minutes for Q to realize that Bond wasn’t actually trying to discuss something, but was instead relaying the words to the song resounding all around them.  His voice was low, rough-edged, but it went down smooth like a shot of good whiskey, and soon began to match the tune a bit, too.  Q was frozen, wondering if this was how a mouse felt, mesmerized by a snake - or in this case, a Dragon, somehow making the song sound more beautiful as he sang bits of it for Q’s ears alone.  And when the song switched to French, Bond translated, seamless and lyrical as a lullaby.  

Bond stopped a bit after the song ended, his own spin on the song making it somehow more… classical… than the real thing, and Q found himself turning his head to catch the last lingering hum.  Then he turned a bit more, utterly lost, utterly happy, and so utterly in need of answers that he just blurted, “Why are you doing this?  Why are… all of you…?”  He lacked the words, and ended up letting go of Bond’s enwrapping forearms to gesture in a wild and probably unhelpful way.  

“Giving you the time of day?” Bond guessed, somehow still ridiculously calm.

“Yes,” Q grumped.  He liked understanding things, and he sure as hell didn’t understand this, which frustrated him.  

Bond still hadn’t let go of him, but at least made an effort to appear thoughtful now, chewing the inside of his cheek and breaking eye-contact to look off at nothing.  When another song started up, something jarring and raunchy, he transferred his grip to Q’s forearms and led him off the dance-floor to another set of couches, unoccupied as others got up to shimmy and dance.  Q put up a fuss but ultimately allowed himself to be pulled down next to Bond - whereupon his legs were pulled up across Bond’s lap, and the arm around his upper back coaxed him to lean his head against Bond’s shoulder.  The position felt childish, but also intimate, and at the same time comforting and safe as Bond rubbed and squeezed his shoulder.  “We would have given you the time of day before, Q,” Bond said, patient and surprisingly sincere.  It made Q look up through his bangs, whereupon blue eyes met his candidly, and the agent continued with a small smile, “But you had that armor of professionalism around you, and besides that, we were all pretty sure M would skin us if anyone started coming on to you.”

This was new.  Forthrightness from a 00-agent was a lot like snow in the summer, and it made Q sit up a bit and stare.  “And playing Fury to 006 and 002 - and twice to you - bypassed that?” he asked, somewhat incredulously.  As the music got louder, he had to raise his voice and almost shout to be heard.  

Bond solved the volume problem by crooking his arm up behind Q’s neck and pulling him in close enough so that he could talk directly into his ear.  He wasn't singing anymore, but it still made Q’s breath catch and he froze in place, listening.  “Think of it more like… putting on a different mask.  We’ve always looked at you and seen ‘Quartermaster,’ just as you look at us and see ‘agents’,” Bond said, then shrugged, a motion that was translated through his body to Q as a flexion of muscles, “But now you’ve earned the mask of ‘Fury’.”

“I’ve always been a Fury.”

“Not really, not to us,” Bond maintained sternly.  Then his voice softened and he leaned back, taking Q with him, so that he was once again cuddled half upon the blond-haired agent’s lap.  “It’s complicated, Q.  But if this makes you uncomfortable-”

“No!”  The word leapt swiftly and loudly from Q’s mouth, and he blushed as soon as he sealed his lips shut again.  Bond was eyeing him, one eyebrow raised, but perhaps he started to smile when Q refused to say anything more - or retract his statement.  

“In that case,” Bond finished, with another relaxed shrug and a small but definite upward tilt to his lips, “congratulations: you may never get your personal space back again.”

That was perhaps meant to rile Q a bit and tease him, but he couldn’t find any anger in himself - not even when he saw the other 00-agents drifting over from where they’d been sitting before, as if towards the pull of a newly chosen sun.  Q would never be glad that Lorelei had died, but he would always be grateful for this rare spot she’d opened up for him.  

Sometimes, being the ‘favorite’ was a bit trying, like when Alec had a rough mission and even after seeing Blakely, decided to camp out in Q’s office.  “006,” Q tried patiently to explain, “this is an office, and until you decide to have more than a passing interest in paperwork, an office isn’t for you.  Now, will you kindly relinquish my chair and desk?”  He got an honest-to-god pout when he tried to swipe Trevelyan’s feet from his desk, and getting the man to move included eventually grabbing him and pulling bodily.  Q suspected that that was what 006 had wanted all along, because as soon as Q grabbed his wrists, the man swiveled his hands to grab right back.  To be fair, he did get up, but he also pulled Q into a tight embrace as soon as he was upright.  Q squirmed like a cat being hugged by a three-year-old.  He glared when he was let loose, but Alec looked more relaxed, and was grinning broadly.  Fortunately, these instances happened very rarely at work, so Q soon accepted the fact that he could be the 00-agent’s favorite Fury and still also be their Quartermaster.  

Sometimes, it was too weird for Q to properly quantify, like when everyone got invited to Eve’s birthday party and proceeded to get plastered.  A few personalities clashed, an inevitable result of too many alpha-dogs and too few inhibitions, and without even thinking about it, Q moved to break them up.  Too late, he realized that the squabbling pair weren’t even Dragons, and therefore disinclined to listen to a scrawny boffin.  Just when Q came to his senses, standing between two bristling individuals, 003 stepped in.  On any given day, Q would have said that 003, Gregory Hind, didn’t like _anyone_ , but apparently he’d jumped on the bandwagon when it came to liking Q.  Just when it looked like Q’s three glasses of wine and one bad decision were going to get him punched in the nose, 003 stepped in like a glowering, black-haired storm-cloud, and even Q was a bit spooked by his expression.  It did the trick of getting the two would-be-combatants to back off immediately, however, and 003 made a small chuffing noise of satisfaction before dropping a hand on Q’s shoulder like it belonged there.  003 didn’t talk much, but he kept Q company for the next half-hour, by which point every other Dragon in the room had gravitated their way until Q felt like he had a posse.  

The ‘too weird to quantify’ part came when most everyone got too drunk to drive home on their own and therefore began falling asleep all over Moneypenny’s home.  Q, guilty of trying to keep up with the 00-agents, ended up waking up on the rather spacious couch nestled against not one but two of them.  He’d squeaked in mortified surprise, but Bond (one of the two he’d become tangled up with, inevitably, as 007 was by far the clingiest of the lot) merely muttered something that sounded like “Go the fuck to sleep, Q,” before snagging an arm around Q’s middle and tugging him close again.  Still pretty buzzed, Q kept his head raised long enough to take the lay of the room: he counted all of his Dragons, asleep in various places, and they all looked contented, idle.  Alec moved against his legs on the couch, and appeared to have pulled Q’s shoes off at some point; now, Q burrowed his sock feet into the agent’s warmth, and Alec barely grunted in acknowledgement.  

Q’s brain would melt if he tried to untangle the exactly meaning behind moments like these.  His brain would probably also melt if he had to ground another enraged Dragon again, but right now, all of his Dragons were quiet and safe, and when Q tentatively opened up his inner eye… he saw not an ounce of anger in the room.  Deciding that he could get used to this, Q settled down again, lowering himself to the couch and accepting the tightening of Bond’s arms.  Swiveling his head, he could just see the man’s blond head where it was pressing between his shoulder-blades; his breath was a warm, pulsing river down Q’s spine, through his shirt.  The blue-eyed agent shifted, molding to him more comfortably.  Alec’s wrist grabbed his ankle, reminding Q that more than just James cared for him.  

Eve, leaning against the doorway, smiled softly, and left to finish off the last of the birthday cake, leaving behind a room filled with probably the most dangerous men and women alive - and the one person who, against all rhyme and reason, had been stupid and brave enough to earn their trust.  

Q, for his part, fell asleep again, content with the knowledge that he could be as vulnerable he wanted, because those same dangerous men and women had his back.  Of course, at this rate, they’d probably all cuddle him to death before his next birthday, but it wasn’t an entirely terrible way to go...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got 2 more weeks of break, so we'll see if I can get anything else posted - but I at least got this full story out ^_^ It was terribly fun to write, and I hope everyone enjoyed!


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